353. Memorandum From the Deputy Director of the Office of Caribbean and Mexican Affairs (Hurwitch) to the Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs (Martin)0
SUBJECT
- Future Courses of Action with respect to Cuba
The members of the Mongoose Operations Group have been requested to submit by July 20 the factors they think should be considered by the Special Group with respect to each of the following four possible future courses of action regarding Cuba:
- a.
- Cancel operational plans; treat Cuba as a Bloc nation; protect Hemisphere from it or
- b.
- Exert all possible diplomatic, economic, psychological, and other pressures to overthrow the Castro-Communist regime without overt U.S. military commitment, or
- c.
- Commit U.S. to help Cubans overthrow the Castro-Communist regime, with a step-by-step phasing to ensure success, including the use of U.S. military force if required at the end, or
- d.
- Use a provocation and overthrow the Castro-Communist regime by U.S. military force.
General Lansdale plans to submit a composite of these factors (including, I presume, his own views) to the Special Group. He has informed me that General Taylor intends to invite Secretaries Rusk and McNamara to attend the Special Group meeting when these courses of action are to be discussed. Final recommendations would then, presumably, be submitted to the President.
Preliminary discussion of these courses of action in the Operations Group reveals that the CIA and Defense representatives favor prior commitment to employ U.S. military force; General Lansdale appears to waver, although I believe he feels his task would be greatly simplified if such a commitment could be obtained; the USIA representative thinks it important that a decision be made regarding use of military force, although he has not indicated his preference.
In my opinion, the concentration of attention upon the employment of U.S. military force against Cuba runs counter to the basic concept of Mongoose which is to bring down the Castro regime from within. In the Department, we have recognized the contingency that U.S. military force may be required, and perhaps could be feasibly employed from a political standpoint if a virtual civil war situation existed in Cuba, where anti-Castro forces held substantial territory, appealed for U.S. assistance, and we recognized these forces as the Government of Cuba.
Mr. Harvey (CIA) at the last Operation Group meeting expressed as his considered judgment that a revolt could eventually be mounted in Cuba. By revolt, however, he meant an assault upon a number of Cuban Government installations, including some in the provinces. He did not think that such assaults could be organized in a fashion where anti-Castro forces held territory for any length of time or could overthrow the regime without outside military assistance.
There is clearly a gap between the present CIA estimate of what it can accomplish and what we feel should be the minimum condition in Cuba where we might consider using U.S. military force. Nevertheless, the situation in Cuba is volatile and unpredictable and CIA may be more successful than it presently estimates to be the case. If, or as we proceed with Operation Mongoose, we should recognize that the pressure within the Executive to employ U.S. military force will become increasingly intense.
I could recommend that the course of action we follow for the indefinite future be the following modification of (b) above:
“Exert all feasible diplomatic, economic, psychological and other pressures to overthrow the Castro regime without prior commitment to employ U.S. military forces overtly, recognizing however that contingencies [Page 848] may arise where employment of U.S. military force might be considered.”
There is attached for appropriate approval, the Departmentʼs contribution that I would propose be included in the Operation Groupʼs paper regarding the four courses of action.
- Source: Department of State, Central Files, 737.00/7-1962. Top Secret. Also addressed to Goodwin.↩
- On July 19 Martin passed on Hurwitchʼs memorandum to Johnson, with a covering memorandum indicating that Martin had approved the Hurwitch memorandum as the Department of State contribution to the requested policy review. Martin noted that, in his opinion: “The suggested re-statement of course (b) contained in the attached memorandum is good, I think, and ARA would hope that there might emerge from the Phase I review a policy statement such as that.” He asked Johnson to look over the Hurwitch memorandum before it was submitted to General Lansdale. (Ibid.)↩